Another of the same family was named Celer (the Swift), because of the
wonderful quickness with which he provided a show of gladiators on the
occasion of his father's funeral. Some even to the present day derive
their names from the circumstances of their birth, as for instance a
child is named Proculus if his father be abroad when he is born, and
Postumus if he be dead. If one of twins survive, he is named Vopiscus.
Of names taken from bodily peculiarities they use not only Sulla (the
Pimply), Niger (the Swarthy), Rufus (the Red-haired), but even such as
Caecus (the Blind), and Claudus (the Lame), wisely endeavouring to
accustom men to consider neither blindness nor any other bodily defect
to be any disgrace or matter of reproach, but to answer to these names
as if they were their own. However, this belongs to a different branch
of study.
XII. When the war was over, the popular orators renewed the
party-quarrels, not that they had any new cause of complaint or any just
grievance to proceed upon; but the evil result which had necessarily
been produced by their former riotous contests were now made the ground
of attacks on the patricians. A great part of the country was left
unsown and untilled, while the war gave no opportunities for importation
from other countries. The demagogues, therefore, seeing that there was
no corn in the market, and that even if there had been any, the people
were not able to buy it, spread malicious accusations against the rich,
saying that they had purposely produced this famine in order to pay off
an old grudge against the people.
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